Borealis (Modern AU)
by justvisiting80
Summary: Merry Christmas and Happy Festivus, Bellarke fans. This was written for the best group of friends a girl could ask for... but I thought others might enjoy it as well. Pardon the excessive inside jokes. And, as with all my stuff... it'll earn its "M" rating eventually.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: MERRY CHRISTMAS TO THE BEST #GIRLSQUAD EVER: **marinablack99** , **persepholily** , and **lucawindmover**. Ladies, we kick Taylor Swift's squad's ass. Nicely, of course._

 _A/N2: I am not going to lie, half this story is inside jokes for my girls. But I thought others might still enjoy the tale._

 _A/N3: I am aware I suck at AU. Thank you for your patience!_

 **Borealis**

Bellamy stares at his holiday shopping list, a holdover habit from happier days. Shakes his head at his own stupidity. Crosses _her_ name off the list with a bit more anger than he wants to admit he still carries, and sighs at the now-ripped scrap of paper.

"Whatever," he mutters as he crumples the forlorn, damaged thing and tosses it toward the trashcan in the corner. "I'll be the Grinch."

Miller will be getting into town tonight, which is a blessing since the tiny basement apartment they share just off Dupont Circle is looking increasingly apocalyptic. Bellamy shrugs into his favorite leather jacket, flicks off the lights, and heads out into the chilly, rainy December afternoon.

This weather matches his mood as if custom-ordered: grey and cold and wet. Sidewalks are a stained mess, black sooty remnants of snowdrifts and the white lacy shadows of road salt. Streets, by contrast, are sleek. Wet-black. Glistening. Bellamy tugs his collar higher, shrugs his shoulders up and tucks his head down, and heads to the bookstore.

"You're late," Octavia announces from just inside the large front window display, before he has even shaken the water from his curls.

"I'm the owner. How the hell can I be late if I'm the owner?"

"I don't know, but you do it all the time," she complains as she jumps down. Steps back to examine her work. "I'm heading out. Lincoln and I are buying the last of the gifts today."

"…But not from your own family's bookstore…?"

"No. That's your thing, not mine, Big Brother."

"Bah humbug," Bellamy mutters, sliding out of his jacket and into his spot behind the register.

"What's that?"

"What's what?"

"What did you just say to me?" Octavia presses, as if looking for the fight. She's been itching for another chance to do battle over this issue, his pervasive melancholy and general anger at the world. He knows that. He knows he has managed to thwart her efforts so far, but today the world sucks.

"Sorry, O," Even though he isn't, not really, "This year I'm the Grinch."

"That's not even the Grinch, you dumbass. That's Scrooge."

He frowns. She's right.

"You've read more books than anyone I know. You spend every waking minute hidden inside a book. And you can't remember the difference between Dickens and Seuss?" Incredulity beats out anger and her sudden pity – visible in the crease at the corner of her frown, the curve of her eyebrows – makes him want to grab her and shake her and point out that she is. _Not._ Fucking. Helping.

"Enough, O," he manages in curt warning just as Monty wanders in from the back room, staggering under a tower of the new soft-cover editions of _Quiet & Cold_. Bellamy curses and looks down at the beat-up two-year desk calendar beside the cash register.

They all tell him it's time to retire the god-awful thing – time to admit his cell phone would do a better job of keeping him on track, with alerts for things like, say, book signings – but he will not get rid of the planner and its sentimental coffee stains and its penciled in appointments and its secret collection of cryptic notes from _her_ to him and back again, scrawled along the edges.

Not yet.

"When is Ms. Lilly getting here?" he asks the room in general. Monty pants out the answer – "six o'clock" – and goes back to the business of stacking books. Bellamy escapes to the kitchen; Octavia, through the door and into the outstretched arms of her just-a-bit-older-than-Bellamy-likes boyfriend.

It would be nice to say he is happy for her – and there was, briefly, a time when he found that generosity easy – but these days he just resents the speed with which she has transitioned from his kid sister into someone else's romantic partner. Resents it the way any single parent would, maybe: _I've sacrificed all my own chances at love so that you would never have to_. Maybe. Or maybe not, maybe those people are better than he is, maybe they can do it without feeling the sting.

Jaha and Murphy are in the kitchen prepping for dinner and giving Alie, the new server, a hard time. On any other day he would stop them but Alie has always rubbed him the wrong way and hey, if she can't deal with it she can always quit. People _beg_ to work at Borealis. Because who _wouldn't_ want to spend all day strung out on mountains of novels and too much coffee at the front half of the bookstore, and all night soaking in the heady blend of the café-cum-bar's carefully-curated wine selection, Jaha's small but elegant menu of Asian-inspired Creole cooking, and an increasingly prestigious list of guest speakers?

And there it is.

He _misses_ Clarke, suddenly and eye-wateringly, and Bellamy steadies himself against a stainless steel shelving unit overflowing with lemongrass and ginger and coconut milk.

The other men don't notice, thank fuck, and the moment passes leaving only a small lingering soreness in his chest and he checks on Jaha to make sure everything is ready for dinner service before forcing a smile for Alie and grabbing the nearby clipboard with its printout of the week's work schedule.

 _What the hell?_ "Who scheduled Jasper to wait tables tonight?" That's practically a guaranteed headache, one he doesn't need on a night when a bestselling author is going to be bringing in the crowds and half the seats are already reserved for the evening.

"You did," Monty calls from just beyond the kitchen door – a line he has always refused to cross. "You said it'd be good for him."

Bellamy follows his best clerk back out to the sales floor. "Monty. You gotta do it. Just for tonight."

"No! You promised me I'd never have to wait a table. That was the deal when you hired me."

Bellamy fumes but gives up because he can't afford to piss off Monty, too, the only one who isn't annoyed by the desk calendar and has never tried to make him talk about _her_ and has, in general, been a better friend than Bellamy has deserved.

Instead he waits until Jasper shows up, reassigns him to the coffee counter – less crowded at night, and nobody minds a surly barista – and as soon as C.C. Lily (younger and prettier and quieter than he expected) arrives with her agent (a blonde woman named Marina who smiles easily but hovers protectively over the talented author) Bellamy hands them off to Monty and grabs a black half apron and joins Harper and Alie to wait tables for the night.

* * *

When his father bought the place almost thirty years ago, it was a used bookstore boasting more spider webs than customers. He named it Borealis Books and pronounced it a wedding gift to Aurora, and worked too many hours for too many years trying to make the place successful. When he killed himself and left Aurora and their preschool-aged son with nothing but debt and a shitty little bookstore, Aurora sold the inventory to a dealer for far less money than it was worth and changed their last name to Blake and opened a café in the space and almost made it work, until Marcus.

 _Marcus the Sperm Donor._ It has always been easier to think of him as that than as the man who walked out on Aurora and her son and an unborn child. Because nowhere in Bellamy's mind is there space for someone who could _do_ that… to count as a "man" at all.

So Bellamy Blake, abandoned by two fathers in the space of three years, grew up fast. Started bussing tables at seven. Waiting at ten. Closing up and cleaning up and opening up at thirteen, and would have kept going after high school except Aurora – with a kiss and a smile and a hard crack in her voice – threatened to kick him out if he didn't do something more with his life. She couldn't afford to send him to college, couldn't pay for him to travel the world, but the military could…

He was with the Rangers in Iraq when he got the call about his mother. After thirty-seven hours of travel and too many transfers to count, Bellamy arrived in Fort Benning at three in the morning, rented a car, and drove eleven hours to the tiny apartment Aurora and Octavia shared two blocks from the coffee shop. There he found his teenage sister balled up on the sofa under her favorite quilt, ignoring hundreds of messages from funeral parlors and lawyers and accountants and the landlord. With two panicked shots to the chest, a junkie in an alley trying to steal her purse had ended Aurora's life.

And Bellamy's.


	2. Chapter 2

"Bell?" Octavia's voice pulls him out of his unexpected trip down shadowy Memory Lane and he grabs her in a hug she does not understand, but returns anyway because they're Blakes and that's what Blakes do, they're there for each other.

"I thought you were shopping," he points out as he grabs his notepad off the bar counter and weaves through the crowd to table seven to take drink orders.

"All done. Lincoln said we should come back to see if you need any extra help tonight."

"Yeah well, tell him thanks," Bellamy begins, glancing toward his target to see how many diners he's got, "But I've got it – "

 _–_ _Oh shit._

" _–_ O, you're on seven." He hands her the notepad and rips his apron string in his haste to get it off, but that is the least of his worries and he can barely manage to keep his shit together long enough to toss the ball of fabric at Octavia before fleeing back through the tables.

Clarke's voice follows him up the three broad steps separating the dining room from the bookstore but he can't turn around, he wasn't ready for her and he has to remember how to not hate her which, if he's honest, is the same as saying he has to remember how to not love her.

Because Clarke Griffin has broken his heart in too many ways to count.

There was the first day she showed up in his bookstore in an old Orioles t-shirt too big for her, and her gold hair braided into a crown, and he helped her pick out a gift for her new girlfriend and as she walked out the door she stopped just to turn back and shoot him a grateful smile he dreamed about for three nights after.

There was the day he realized she had become a regular who knew all his employees' names and their biggest hopes and greatest fears and he wondered how she had inserted herself into their lives so readily… and then she asked him how things were going with Octavia's new boyfriend Lincoln, and even though he could tell he had fallen under her spell just like the others, he couldn't _not_ answer, not when those bright blue inquisitive eyes were staring into his as if determined to know his soul.

There was that bittersweet night so similar to this one, grey and rainy, when he'd found her curled into the old armchair by the psychology books, her oversized faded-blue sweater stretched over knees that were tucked tight into her trembling chest. That was the night she told him about how toxic life with her officially-former girlfriend had been, how she'd destroyed her high school sweetheart for the chance to be with Lexa. That was also the night she explained her odd wardrobe – her dead father's old shirts, and all she had left of his – and they'd bonded over the loss of parents and he'd offered her a job as a clerk, working nights and weekends and pretty soon every minute she wasn't in classes over at Georgetown.

"Bellamy, _stop!_ "

He pauses five feet from Ms. Lily's signing table. Glances around, suddenly desperate for some other place to have this conversation.

And this is how Clarke owns him, in moments like this when she reads everything he is thinking in the slope of his shoulders. She recognizes his quiet panic and does not even hesitate, just glides past him to the front door and out into the streetlight-polluted night that is D.C. in the winter.

He follows her.

Through the window behind them, a world bathed in soft gold light is visible. Couples stand in line at the register, at the author's table, at the hostess station in the back. A family of four – the father of Asian descent, the mother green-eyed and freckled, their daughters painfully cute – wanders toward Jasper's counter with arms full of picture books and Bellamy can hear their order in his head, _two lattes, two cocoas with whipped cream, and okay, sure – why not a brownie for the girls?_

Out here the temperature has dropped just enough to turn rain into sleet and glaze sidewalks with a beautiful, treacherous sheet of ice. Clarke retreats to the brick edge of the building. Huddles under the brightly-colored Borealis awning – _her_ awning, she insisted on painting the dull black canvas pretty much as soon as she started receiving a paycheck from him – and pretends not to shiver at the biting wind funneling toward them from Dupont Circle.

She is wearing a long off-white cardigan over a soft dark blue shirt, and tight black pants that remind Bellamy just how much he has missed her legs. He wonders if she knows how beautiful she is, assumes she does not. She always hated to hear it said out loud.

"You look good," he grunts.

"You too," she tries, and they both know it's a lie, he looks like shit and has since the day she left. He was no good at sleeping before her, was no good at it with her gone, and is wondering if he'll ever sleep again now that she's back – when she pulls a pack of cigarettes from the deep pocket of her sweater.

Clarke lights one; the smoke curling under his nose is caustic and familiar. Bellamy frowns so deeply he can feel the skin between his brows crinkle. She detests smoking, has always only done it to piss off Dr. Griffin.

"Your mom can't even see you out here. That's pointless."

"She'll smell it when I go back inside."

He steps toward her, stopping just far enough away to make it clear they are not picking up where they left things. Not by a long shot.

"Here. Give it to me." She obliges silently and this part _does_ feel an awful lot like the way it used to be, the quiet way they work together.

A hard drag on her cigarette. The slight disorientation, as a body long free of nicotine and tar tries to remember what to make of this experience.

"I just got back," she whispers in answer to the question he won't ask. "I would have called but Mom wanted to grab dinner and I…" she blinks hard and stares down at her feet. "I didn't want to give myself time to second-guess it. I told her we should come here."

He exhales with practiced perfection over her long blonde hair, letting smoke settle into the mess of loose waves on her shoulders and the new braids at her temples.

Bellamy's fingers curl toward his palm. Muscle memory. An automatic reaction to the sudden visual reminder of how comfortably they used to curl around the back of her skull and tangle into all that bright sunlight whenever he kissed her.

Another puff on the cigarette. Less painful this time, which is his cue to stop because that is precisely how good soldiers end up dying of lung cancer, that easy addictive burn in the chest. Without asking Clarke if she is done – of course she's done, she's sniffing at her hair and scowling – Bellamy stubs the half-smoked thing out on the sidewalk and slip-skates to a nearby trashcan to throw it away.

On his way back she reaches for him, to steady him. He grabs her hand automatically because fuck yes this shit is slippery and he and O can't afford for him to break a bone right now and by the time he is back under the awning he has forgotten the self-imposed rule about distance.

He still hurts, of course. Betrayal is a thousand knives sawing away at the body from the inside. But ever since that first offhand smile, she has always been what heals him.

He is a walking paradox.

"You realize how fucked up this is," he says out loud.

"Should I go?"

"I…" He wants to say no. He wants to press her against the cold wet brick wall and kiss away the stupid suggestion. He wants to sneak her into the closet he calls his office and make love to her until she promises to never ever even _think_ about leaving this place, not once, ever again.

"No." Bellamy scrubs at his face. "No, that's not what I meant. But we should get back inside."


	3. Chapter 3

Ms. Lily lifts her head as the young couple walks by her table toward the dining room, something suspiciously similar to sympathy in her half-smile. It is comforting; Bellamy stops and reminds her to come find him when she's finished up for the evening. Clarke raises one surprised eyebrow at the exchange. Whispers, for Bellamy's ears alone:

"You still _do_ that?"

"Luca insisted. She loves traditions."

"Wait, Luca's here?" Clarke twists back to look for the effervescent girl with the oversized heart, but Bellamy shakes his head.

"Sorry, she's in Wisconsin for the holidays." He hates how disappointed the news makes Clarke. "She'll be back in a couple weeks, though, don't worry."

 _Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck._ Bellamy bites his lip in frustration: the comment slipped out before he had a chance to process it.

"I'll get you her number. In case you're still around then." This is his apology. His way of assuring her he has made no assumptions about her, about how long she plans to stay, about _them_ or pretty much anything else these days.

Clarke simply nods, confirming all his fears.

They arrive at the table and Dr. Griffin fakes a smile for Bellamy and scrunches up her nose in disgust at the stink of her daughter's hair and accuses Clarke of smoking.

Clarke says nothing at all, just glares at the obviousness of the comment. The gorgeous woman sitting opposite the Griffins leaps up to hug Bellamy.

"Raven, it's been a while. How are you?"

"Good, I'm good. Better now that Clarke's back, of course, but I'm sure _you're_ even – " she catches herself and the whole table can almost hear her silent scream of mortification at being the one to bring it all up in public.

Harper shows up with food for the table, rescuing Raven. Bellamy looks around for Octavia. Finds her standing by the doorway to the kitchen with her arms folded and her mouth a tight disapproving line. It is a disturbingly accurate impression of Aurora.

"I need to check in with the chef," he lies to smooth any ruffled feathers at the table. "Enjoy your meal."

Octavia turns to follow him into the kitchen, so close her toes actually strike against his heels. "Kick her out."

"Shut up."

"She is _not_ welcome in this establishment!"

"I can't do this with you anymore!" Bellamy roars with sudden fury, twisting back to confront her. "Let it go, Octavia! I have!"

"You _haven't_! You haven't let go, you just pretend and leave all the rest of us to suffer for it, you fucking asshole!" She is screaming now to match him, the fight they haven't had in six months but one they know so well it has become its own kind of choreographed dance. Even the staff knows what to do next: Harper and Murphy manhandle them into Bellamy's office and shut the door, where their noise will not reach the customers.

Harper slips down the short hall between kitchen and bookstore and finds Monty. "Didn't he say Miller was coming in tonight?" She whispers the question, not wanting to disturb his customers.

"Yeah, but not for another hour or so." Monty checks the time on his phone. "I can text him if you want, he'll get it as soon as he touches down."

"Do it." She offers him her best smile – he blushes – and she whirls back toward the bar.

"One Blake Sibling Special, please," she sighs when the bartender calls her name to take her order.

Wick nods. "Yeah, I saw Clarke come in, figured it was going to be one of those nights." He slides an unmarked, seaglass-foggy bottle across the counter to Harper. "Good luck."

She runs her thumb over the cool textured surface and licks her lips, steeling herself for the return trip to Bellamy's office.

"Harper?" Clarke appears out of nowhere. Rests a steady hand on the girl's shaky arm. "It's okay. I'll do it."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"How bad could it be?" Sad blue eyes reveal her awareness of _just how bad it_ _will_ _be_. She pries the bottle from Harper's fingers anyway. "Go on. Bellamy needs you in the dining room. That new girl is floundering."

Harper hugs Clarke gratefully. "I'm glad you're back."

* * *

Octavia is so busy yelling she cannot hear the knock at the door. Bellamy does. Like some pathetic addict his blood calls out for _her_ so strongly it can even tell her knuckles are the ones tapping out S.O.S. in jesting Morse Code.

"Don't you dare open that door!" Octavia warns when she realizes, but he ignores her. Clarke is smart enough to stay out of the younger Blake's way, sidling along the wall to Bellamy's vacant chair and propping her feet up on the edge of his desk, watching the siblings.

"Fine then! Here, not here, who gives a shit! I'll say it anyway!" Octavia's chest heaves with each verbal exclamation mark. "Bellamy, she's the worst thing that ever happened to us!"

"That's not true!"

"It is! Worse than Mom dying, Bellamy! She's a curse on our family!"

"O! You're being irrational!"

"No, _you_ are! You can't see how dangerous she is! To you, to this store, to all our friends…" For a moment it looks like Octavia will cry.

"I refuse to talk to you if you're going to act like a fucking _child_ ," Bellamy tries.

 _"_ _She killed Maya."_ The accusation comes out in Octavia's worst voice, the low hiss she reserves for when she is really pissed and needs Bellamy to see it.

Usually it is enough to give him pause but tonight he pushes back. "Stop it. Just _stop._ You know that's not what happened."

"Get her _out_ of our _lives_ Bell! Do it or I swear to god, you're _dead_ to me!"

And it is Bellamy's turn to channel his inner Aurora. He sinks back on his heels, arms crossed. The muscle in his cheek ticks angrily but he says nothing. Simply stares at his baby sister, flooding the cloying air with all the disappointment and hurt her threat provokes within him.

Clarke holds her breath. Part of her _wants_ him to reject her. For his sake. She cannot volunteer to leave, that would do nothing to heal the rift between these two broken people in front of her but if _he_ does it, if _he_ declares Clarke unfit to be in this room and by extension unfit to be a part of his life, then at least Octavia will support him and Clarke will know – finally and unequivocally – that she has ruined the best chance she ever had at happiness.

He doesn't do it.

"…Wow. Thank you for clarifying what really matters to you," Octavia eventually announces into the void left by Clarke's determined neutrality and Bellamy's stubborn refusal to abandon her. "You two fucking deserve each other."

And she is gone.

"Why did you do that?" Clarke whispers. Bellamy has not moved, and she can only see his face in quarter-profile but his back and shoulders have always told her his secrets anyway and right now they are screaming at her to touch him, to hold him and promise him everything will be okay. To fix the world for him the way he tried to fix it for her, after she reached into the universe they had created and smashed everything.

She watches him shrug, a slow thing, like watching a mountain shift and settle - but at the end of the process he is, just like the mountain, calmer. More stable.

"Because she's wrong. You didn't kill Maya, Clarke. That bus did." He half-turns to her, spying on her out of the corner of his eye.

There is only the sound of Clarke's too-steady breath – this is what she has gained after so many months of counseling sessions, the ability to breathe through the painful memories – and external echoes of other people's busy happiness, muffled and deadened by the office door.

Bellamy asks the question she knows he's been holding onto all evening. "When do you go back?"

"I... I don't." She picks anxiously at the cuticle on one thumb. "I've been accepted into the med program at GW. They're transferring my credits from UVM."

"I knew you could it," he says in his gruff way, always more confident in her talent than she. He steps toward her. Grabs her fidgety hands to stop the self-destructive tendency of her fingers. His touch at her wrists hurts, too tender, too familiar. Clarke licks her lips and moves closer, hovering now just inside the crescent almost-hug of his arms without looking at his face.

"Want a job?" His tone tries for casual. Misses. "This new girl Alie has got to go."

She laughs anyway, and it feels good, laughing at Bellamy and watching him smile back, his real one, the one that creases his face and brightens his eyes.

"I don't think I'll have time," she admits as she falls into those eyes again as hard and completely as she did the first time. "Med school isn't like undergrad."

Someone knocks gently on the door before stepping into the room and Bellamy drops Clarke's hands and slips back into business mode and introduces Clarke to C.C. Lily and her agent Marina, and there's a moment where the four of them try to pretend hanging out in this tiny office isn't awkward before Bellamy just gives up and shoos everyone back out toward the only other space that will fit everyone, the inventory room and its corner of mismatched living room furniture lovingly referred to as Camp Jaha, after the massive leather sofa donated by the chef.

Clarke offers up the bottle she rescued from Harper but Bellamy shakes his head: no way he would ever ask an author to touch that moonshine. He texts Monty, who arrives three minutes later with a mismatched collection from behind Wick's bar. Everyone grabs their poison of choice: C.C. protests at first, claiming not to be much of a drinker but when pressed, insists on Glenfiddich single malt. Bellamy smiles and follows her lead – he always does that with the authors, it's one of those unconscious ways he sucks people into him – and Marina opts for tequila while Clarke clings stubbornly to her unmarked bottle.

Bellamy grabs an old pair of dice from the tray and passes them to Clarke, seated on his right. She closes her eyes for a moment before calling out the title of a book: _The Odyssey._ Marina and C.C. watch her, confused, as she rolls the dice one at a time.

"The first one determines who has to answer," Bellamy supplies, staring at the five small black dots. "That's me." He raises one brow at Clarke, as if accusing her of cheating, but she just shrugs and rolls again… another five.

"Shit, Clarke."

"That means he has to sum up the book in five words or less," she clarifies for the pair of dubious women.

"Oh, come on." The disbelieving response comes from the author; Clarke holds up one finger, and nods toward the dark-haired man sitting between them.

"Taking the long way home," Bellamy announces, and Clarke can feel his eyes on her and knows he's barely talking about Homer at all. Suddenly she regrets her choice of book.

"Anyone can challenge, too," she offers in subdued tones by way of distraction.

"I don't know, that was pretty fucking good," Marina laughs, and C.C. nods in agreement. The dice pass to Bellamy: he selects _On War_ and rolls a three and Clarke gives him the same glare he gave her because that means it's her turn, and she hasn't read it even though he's told her to a million times and now as a penalty, she has to do a shot.

Marina offers _Moby Dick_ and rolls a two and Clarke sighs in relief because while it's her turn again at least the second roll came up a six and anyone can summarize _Moby Dick_ in six words, and then it's C.C. Lily's turn and she pulls out Churchill's _The Gathering Storm_ and Bellamy grins when her roll lands on him, but the second die shows a three and he curses and drinks. Nobody could do that in three words, he points out defensively, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

Half an hour later they're all feeling pretty comfortable with each other and the book titles have taken a distinctly less intellectual turn. Clarke has just challenged C.C. Lily to summarize Calvin and Hobbes in two words or less when Miller bursts into the room, still in his National Guard uniform. Bellamy jumps up to give him a hug. He is oblivious at first to the frantic expression on his friend's face.

"Monty said it was an emergency." The first words out of Nathan Miller's mouth confuse Bellamy. He shakes his head.

"No emergency. Clarke's home." Even through the scotch-induced fog Bellamy knows his announcement came out wrong and he cringes at the way Miller turns to stare past him. To stare down the blonde woman who walked out on all of them but especially Bellamy, ten months and one week ago.

Not that Bellamy's been counting.

"Octavia took off. She's pissed," he confesses.

"Then go find her and fix it," Miller orders with a shake of his head. "I'll close up here."

"Not yet. She needs time to calm down."

A pause as the men – both ramrod straight, both still military despite the years and the difference in their intervening life choices – wage silent war over the best way to handle Octavia. "Sure," Miller concedes. "She's your sister man, you know what's best."

"Thank you."

"But…" And again there's that shift of the eyes to glance at Clarke, "Why don't you take the night anyway. Wick and Monty and I can close up, for real. Besides, someone will have to talk to Jasper, and it shouldn't be you."

 _Jasper. Shit._

"Nathan, thank you."

"Don't mention it." The soldier lowers his voice and crosses his arms and leans in. "So… What are you going to do about… _her_?"

" _Do_ about her?" He's not going to _do_ anything about Clarke. He can barely breathe near her for fear of scaring her away again. He's not going to do a goddamn thing.


	4. Chapter 4

It's not even ten o'clock when Bellamy and Clarke are kicked out of the bookstore on the pretense of hailing the guest author and her manager a cab back to their hotel. They cannot in good conscience expect the slightly-tipsy women to navigate the metro in this weather, which has finally taken the last brave plunge and turned to snow.

Dr. Griffin, knowing her daughter better than Clarke ever wants to admit, paid the bill and left long ago without saying goodbye. Raven is coiled into a stool at one end of the bar, pretending to be offended by Wick's flirting. Jasper has disappeared, presumably as soon as he heard about Clarke's return, and Bellamy considers the possibility that he will not be able to get rid of Alie so soon after all, if Jasper has finally decided to really quit.

"Well. I should get back home." Clarke pulls warm grey mittens onto her hands as she speaks, the kind that look like someone's grandmother hand-knit them, with a white snowflake pattern to match her long grey scarf. Her winter jacket is thick, dark navy-blue wool, a pea-coat bought in Vermont for Vermont winters. Tiny snowflakes settle in her hair and sparkle under the streetlamp. She looks warm and soft and… and… _fuckable_ , dammit, all wrapped up for him like some tantalizing Christmas present.

"Right," Bellamy agrees, voice hoarser than he expected. She glances up at him, too familiar with his mannerisms not to recognize desire when she hears it. "Or, the zoo has their light display up. We can catch the last few minutes. If you want."

This is _not_ "doing nothing," he berates himself as he hails another taxi, as he holds the door for Clarke, as he tells the driver – a balding man in a Santa hat named "Amut" – to drop them off at the zoo's lower entrance. The cab's interior reeks of fake pine, hovers somewhere just below tropical in climate, and the music is one of those all-Christmas-all-the-time radio stations turned up far too loud. Bellamy is about to order Amut to turn it off when Clarke asks why the lower entrance, why not Connecticut Avenue, leaning in close so he can hear her better.

So close her nose brushes his cheek.

Because the Rock Creek entrance is always less crowded, he reminds her. To himself, he adds: because they'll be waltzing in with minutes to spare before everything closes. And at least this way he can buy her a coffee at the little food cart stationed near the lions. Treat her the way a normal man treats his girlfr- … his…

Bellamy sighs to himself.

 _Normal._ Sure.

Clarke, sensing the sigh but not quite sure of its cause, reaches up to squeeze his bicep lightly through his jacket.

"Hey. You okay?"

When he doesn't immediately answer she nods in a decisive kind of way and shifts to face him better, her back to the car's door and one knee on the seat between them.

"You can yell at me. I deserve it."

"I'm not going to do that, Clarke."

Outside, street scenes flicker by, decorative strings of lights in storefronts catching beads of melted snow on the taxi's windows and obscuring the world beyond a fragmented rainbow. At stoplights only do the huddles of late-night revelers come into better focus: bags from successful last-minute shopping trips, coats buttoned to the collar, fur-lined hoods pulled tight against winter weather.

"Why not, Bellamy? I screwed up. And then – instead of facing it – I ran away and left you to deal with the aftermath."

"You needed time." There's something unnerving – even a little frustrating – about him when he gets like this, all quiet and generous and _good_. So with her next comment she pokes more forcefully, agitating the sleeping bear out of some masochistic need to see him react.

"You deserved time too, but I didn't give that to you. I was so wrapped up in my own guilt, I just… _made_ you be the strong one, Bellamy. I was selfish and cruel."

She cannot yet say to him the other side of this horrible truth, which is that at the time, she had hated herself. She had been sure she didn't deserve anything good in life. And she had hated him a little, too, for how clear everything always was in his world, and for always being there for the people who mattered to him.

She will not tell him that she walked out, at least in part, as a dare: daring him to care about her, to love her, when nobody else would.

"What do you want me to _say,_ Clarke? That you _weren't_ being selfish? You were!" His sudden flare of anger is perfect, hot on her skin, and she _likes_ it. Wants more. "But the thing is," and his voice is already cooler, and she curses him silently, "You had every right to be selfish back then. You messed up, and by luck you survived when Maya didn't, and you were dealing with that. I get it."

"But I hurt you." Clarke's tone is matter-of-fact.

"Yes." So is his. She swallows. Opens her mouth to respond, only to discover he is not finished. "Yes, you hurt me… but not the way you think, not by leaving. By shutting me out. By cutting me off, and forcing me to crawl to your mother like some fucking pathetic stalker just to make sure you were still alive. You hurt me every fucking day you didn't call, or text, or…"

His words aren't what propel her toward him. It's the crack around the edges of his voice as he says them. Her hands rest on his thighs for balance, and they relish the comfortable familiarity of his muscles as he shifts and tenses and relaxes. Her face dips down and curls up and her mouth finds the soft line at the bottom of his lower lip and presses, gently. The tip of her nose slides past his, her eyes flutter closed –

"We are here," Amut announces; the taxi stops abruptly, throwing Clarke off-balance. She recovers but cannot bring herself to look at Bellamy, embarrassed now at her own inexplicable forwardness. He pays their driver – she tries to give him some cash to help offset the cost but he looks so offended she immediately tucks it back into her pocket – and they turn toward the zoo entrance.

Most of the guests are leaving, and Amut will have his choice of decent fares. Bellamy and Clarke pick their way up the slight incline, wary of the rain-ice-snow combination coating the paved walkway, and are the last customers at the coffee stand before the workers inside close up for the night.

Paper cups held carefully between nervous palms grateful for this distraction, the former lovers walk uphill in silence toward the zoo's Connecticut Avenue entrance. The taxi was too warm and yet they happily sat shoulder-to-shoulder. Here in the dark cold of the sleepy zoo, they cannot find their balance. They walk sometimes too distant, revealing the strangers they have become; sometimes too close, as if eager to pretend nothing has changed at all. The middle ground seems an impossible dream.

They are not completely alone; half a dozen other couples pass them on the walk. Some are happy, some argue, and one couple drifts by in a terrifyingly chilly cloud that screams out the end of their relationship.

After watching the retreating backs of that unhappy couple for a full minute, Bellamy draws a bit nearer to Clarke.

Once past the elephants they both turn instinctively toward the Asian exhibit. The animals are inside by now – not that any of them would want to be outside on this snowy night – and Clarke heads for the bridge to the bird house without stopping to look around her. She knows this is Bellamy's reason for bringing her out here. Knew it the minute he made the suggestion.

She leans against the railing of the wood-and-steel structure and looks down into the elephant enclosure.

"You remember?" he half-asks her, folding his arms beside hers and staring out over the leafless grey-and-white woods.

"Of course. I told you Lexa didn't like the zoo because she was afraid of the gorillas. And you said that was the stupidest fucking thing you'd ever heard. You said _humans_ were the scariest animal in the zoo."

"Is that... all?" This time he faces her.

 _No._ Clarke remembers more, but she is not yet ready to admit this aloud: _It was the day I fell in love with you_.

She notices – in that odd way the brain has of finding and clinging to all the wrong details in vitally important moments – that he is not wearing gloves. His fingertips are impossibly warm as they reach for her cheek. Just like in the taxi when Clarke's cells responded so happily to the feel of his body, her lids drift shut and she gives in completely to this memory-turned-déjà-vu, whispering now because the whole world has fallen mute under its pretty new blanket of fresh snow:

"You kissed me."

" _You_ kissed _me,_ " he corrects, his words a rough murmur, a suppressed smile, a low hum of need pouring over her and colliding with her own and breaking her open.

There are dozens of ways Clarke has imagined their reunion. None of them has matched reality, but that is always the way with daydreams: things like bitter little sisters and tired throngs of shoppers and overly-festive taxicabs so rarely make an appearance.

There are a handful of ways Clarke has imagined this kiss… and somehow, reality is _all_ of them. The first time it ever happened, they had both been too wrapped up in the self-conscious performance of it all. They had both wanted to _prove_ something.

Now? Now, Bellamy's lips are soft. Uncertain and honest. Relieved, and impatient, and grieving and – a shadow _almost_ hidden but not completely – punishing. She meets him halfway, urgent as she tries to express her own relief, her own fear. Her sorrow for the pain she has caused.

"I'm sorry." The apology is crushed and mangled against his lips but he knows anyway and that is the terrifying beauty of Bellamy Blake, that unfathomable way he knows her at least as well as she knows herself, and maybe better.

She leans her entire body into the warmth of him. Wraps her arms at his neck and relishes the hard pressure of his grip on her waist. The snow and cold don't matter when he is near. The world could end, and he would stay at her side through it all. Would pick up the pieces with her, and wash the dirt off her hands at the end of it. She should have seen that the first time.

If he can just bring himself to give her a second chance, she will spend the rest of her life making up for her mistake.


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N:** The final section of my 2015 year-end gift for my darlings **Marina Black** , **Persepholily** , and **Lucawindmover**. 2015 was brilliant my dears, and I am wildly excited to see what awaits us all in 2016! (I mean it. I love these women. They are incredibly talented, wonderfully supportive, and just all-around GORGEOUS human beings. I wake up each day in awe of them, and humbled to know them.)_

 _ **A/N2:** I also love each and every one of you; collectively, you have all been a HUGE part of what made this past year so amazing. I can't begin to describe what a crazy year this has been personally. I can only say that the beautiful community here on FFN has been a constant through it all, for which I am forever grateful. So many of you have come to mean so much to me! Thank you!_

 _ **A/N3:** There's sex in this bit. Duh. "M" rating for a reason._

* * *

"Let's go home," Bellamy whispers against Clarke's cheek. His teeth chatter as he says it. She bites back her initial heady, triumphant smile at the way he says "home" because what if she spooks him, or what if he means he'll take her back to Abby's place off Embassy Row? Silently – almost meekly, which causes him to stare a bit in concern – she reaches for his hand and lets him lead her toward the wide pedestrian crossing at the zoo's Connecticut Avenue entrance.

There are plenty of taxis but most are full. By the time one stops, Bellamy is too annoyed to complain about the overpowering scent of clove cigarettes or the hint of vomit wafting up from the floor mats. Instead he rolls both windows down – leaning over Clarke to reach the far one, and taking his time at it because it feels damn good to be stretched out across her lap. She tugs one hand free of its mitten and dips slim fingers into his hair, just above the ear.

That settles it.

He sighs and twists and rests his head on her thigh and lets her toy with the unruly curls falling over his forehead as the cab creeps back toward Dupont Circle. She has not yet commented on his accidental reference to _home_ – has not commented on much since the bridge – and he feels his heart rate spike uncomfortably with the suspicion that she intends to drop him off at his apartment before heading back to Abby's brownstone alone.

But the way she is watching him… he isn't imagining that look. He reaches up, finds her other hand, and settles it on his chest just over his racing heart. An old habit of hers. One he has missed. Her eyes widen and she curls down to kiss him again, a sideways kiss but who the fuck cares, it's still one of the best things that's ever happened to him in a taxi. He wraps one hand against the back of her neck, lets his thumb tease the shell of her ear, and sighs as her touch wanders down his torso toward the sliver of bare skin between dark cargo pants and the hem of his sweater.

Bellamy cannot decide if he wants this cab ride to end right now, or go on forever. The decision is made _for_ him, too soon, when they arrive at the end of his block. He remembers – belatedly – what a mess the apartment was when he left and that Miller hasn't been home long enough to tidy it up and wonders if he can get away with keeping the lights off.

But Clarke is acting quiet again. As if maybe this isn't the way their evening is supposed to go. As if maybe they're supposed to take things slower than this. Try _not_ to fuck with each other's hearts all over again quite so soon.

"Are you seeing anyone?" he tries. Offering her an easy out. She can tell the truth or lie and either way, if the next word out of her mouth is _yes_ , he will call her a new cab. Kiss her good night, and good-bye.

Probably.

"No," she replies. Her tone as she says it – surprised and confused – is pure Clarke. No deceit, which frees him up to breathe again but is also, somehow, overwhelming. "I haven't been with anyone, since…" She waves one hand in the air vaguely, a gesture meant to encapsulate all the chaos of their shared history.

"Huh," he manages. "I – "

"I don't – I don't actually want to know," she cuts him off with a shake of her head. "Unless… are _you_? Currently?" The sudden thought sends a mortified blush to her cheeks and she pauses by the garden's tall wrought-iron gate, watching him.

Bellamy raises one eyebrow as answer, because she should definitely know better. She ducks her head in embarrassed understanding. Dammit, he's missed Clarke. He's missed her so much he _still_ misses her, even now, even with her standing right beside him.

"Let's get inside where it's warm." They pick their way along the brick path, focused on the destination and barely cognizant of the savage chilly beauty of the sugar-dusted bushes, the ice-glazed holly tree, or the sparkle of distant streetlight over snowy yard.

As he unlocks the door he mumbles an apology for the apocalypse she is about to witness, but Clarke just laughs off his worry and points out that he and Nathan have always had a distorted view of the definition of "messy" and steps past him to flick on the lights. He watches her move through the space slowly, carrying the same tension she's held with _him_ all night: familiar but cautious, certain she should not be as comfortable as she is. He finds he aches to erase that uncertainty from their lives.

"Miller got a new alarm clock," he announces in an impatient growl as she circles the living room, "And we replaced the bathmat and the shower curtain. That's about it." Bellamy grabs for her hand. Pulls her close: close enough to smell her, feel the hint of curves through her coat, to hear her breath and – with his lips pressed against the crown of her head – to taste the last of the snow as it melts into her mane of golden hair. Clarke's arms around his waist feel too right; it is suddenly so easy to find their familiar rhythm, to pretend they are picking up right where they stopped…

"I missed you," she whispers, spoiling the fantasy. He almost snaps at her for it, but she is crying and the problem with Clarke's tears is how rarely she lets others see them. They have always broken his heart. This time is no exception.

"Shhh, no, hey Princess, don't. Don't cry. I'm here. I'm always here. I never left," he tries, nonsense words really yet Bellamy keeps on chattering like a fucking fool as he leans down to see her face more clearly because he needs her to be okay, because he learned long ago that if she's okay, then he will be too. And if she's not…

Well.

He kisses at tear-streaked cheeks and collects trembling hands in his own steady grip. Glances at the sofa only to veto it: Miller could show up at any moment, and Clarke would be mortified if others witnessed this.

"Come on." Bellamy hates how cold and impersonal his bedroom is these days – but that's what happens when a space is used only for sleeping alone. (And when someone's housemate decides, after far too many months, to go through the room with a cardboard box and gather up all the little reminders of _her._ ) Clarke seems oblivious though, sinking gratefully onto the end of his bed with a weary sigh and a pathetic smile. Of course he knows what she's thinking: she's regretting the sudden emotional weakness.

"Clarke…"

She shakes her head and wipes at her cheeks and laughs, suddenly and angrily.

"I had _never_ done drugs before that night, Bellamy."

He blinks. "I know."

"But it was _finals_. And we were all stretched… way too thin."

"I know."

"And Maya made it sound like no big deal, like all the pre-meds did it, and she said Jasper was on board…"

"Clarke, I know."

"I should never have tried to help her, after the… accident. I should have just called for – "

"Okay _stop_." Bellamy settles on his knees in front of her, his arms resting on her thighs and his body draped between her dangling calves. "Let's not do this to ourselves, okay? There's a reason Miller and I don't talk about our time in the service. You _know_ that," and his voice is lower and rougher than he likes but he presses on. "You _know_ I understand survivor's guilt." He kisses her. "I've got more death on my hands than you ever will. But… I've learned to live with it. And so will you."

She nods eventually, and strokes his face. "You'd make a terrible therapist."

"Noted." He tries a smile: small, in case she isn't ready for that.

"But you're right, too. About living with it, I mean." She leans forward, letting her forehead rest on his. "That's why I came back. Because it turns out I couldn't run away from it."

"…I know," he whispers one more time, and this time she grins and shakes her head, a gentle rocking motion across his brow. Bellamy grunts and stands and pulls her up to face him. "How about a hot shower and a good night's sleep, okay?"

He feels guilty as shit when she returns from the bathroom in nothing but a thick brown towel and his body reacts instinctively to the knowledge that she's completely naked underneath the covering. He tries to hide it but Clarke is observant and all too familiar with how his brain works. She tilts her head and raises one eyebrow and he escapes to the bathroom to shower and _not_ jerk off, even though he is in physical pain at the thought of her currently shimmying into one of his spare t-shirts and climbing in between his sheets.

When he finally steps back into his room, dressed in sleeping pants and rubbing a small towel over his damp hair, she is propped up on _her_ side of the bed. Her pillow is pressed between her hips and the headboard; her knees are tucked to her chest beneath the covers. Bellamy freezes. Leans against the doorframe, jaw clenched tight enough to set a muscle in his cheek twitching. He watches her watch him. Feels all those tiny shards of shattered heart swimming around in his chest, cutting him to ribbons on the inside.

"Please don't leave again."

Eyes widen – hers _and_ his – at the quiet, unexpected plea. Bellamy groans and slams the back of his head lightly against the wall behind him. He never meant to say it aloud. It's too big, too much to throw her way right now.

"I…" she stares down at her hands, words lost for the moment.

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that, Clarke. You can do whatever the hell you want; you know that."

"I couldn't, though." Her whisper is almost inaudible even in the quiet room. "Turns out I can't run away from _you_ , either." She glances up and her eyes suck his soul from his body. "Turns out I love you too much."

" _Dammit_."

Chivalry is dead. Love killed it.

Bellamy crosses the room in long greedy strides; his thighs thud against the edge of the mattress as he drags her face to his. This time he kisses her the way he has wanted to kiss her all evening: hard and hungry. She kisses him back just as fiercely.

Clarke has worn his old army t-shirt less than ten minutes and already it's a pile of cotton on the floor beside the bed. Bellamy traces her freshly exposed curves with reverent fingers, rediscovering her body. Reveling in the pucker of flesh under touch. Relishing the feel of her breasts, supple and round, and the tempting pink buds of her nipples. He pulls one into his mouth and, as Clarke gasps and arches under him, runs his hands down her sides to the elastic-and-lace of her underwear. He tugs softly there, not enough to remove the material but enough to send a shiver of anticipation back up her spine. She throws one hand out to grasp at the bed sheets, twisting them under her fingers, and with the other grabs for his hair.

He freezes when she guides his face up, away from her maddeningly responsive body… but it is only so she, pulling herself to a full sit, can more easily capture his mouth with her own. Arms tighten across his shoulders as her tongue finds his and – expertly, she has always been so damn good at knowing how to ruin him in bed – Clarke teases a moan of pleasure from the back of his throat. She rubs her bare torso over his and Bellamy can feel the hot pulse of need screaming its reply through his stomach, thighs, hips. There is a moment of challenge, which she wins; she presses into him enough to upset his balance and he falls backward onto the bed. He bites his lip to stifle a smile at the sight of her, straddling his waist and shifting her weight against him with such… _purpose_.

Finally he can no longer bear the torture. He drags her close to his chest. Tangles his hands in her hair and whispers in her ear, telling her just _how_ badly he wants her, how badly he has wanted her every day they've been apart. She quivers under his touch and against his chest and along his lips. She is raw desire, the physical manifestation of insatiable yearning. Bellamy rips impatiently at the last of their clothing as she sighs his name hotly into his skin.

They make love like lost partners found again: by turns deliberate and wild, fierce and affectionate, sweet and savage. When he pauses at one point to stare into her eyes, when he confesses that he loves her – has never stopped loving her – she swallows back a quiet sob of relief and tightens her grip on him as if determined never to let go. When the first cheek-warming waves of ecstasy hit her harder than she remembered, and she screams in surprised pleasure, he presses his mouth into hers to stifle the sound and chuckles, low and sexy, at the way she shivers into a foggy bliss. He does not end it there, though, and Clarke remembers with a sudden gasp Bellamy's quiet competitive stubbornness, his refusal to settle for one orgasm when he knows he can give her more.

Eventually, bodies and hearts wrung out by the events of this day, they give in to their shared exhaustion. Curl into each other and find peace in a sleep neither has really known for months. Daylight arrives late, winter's prerogative; weak, lazy beams of dusty gold slink through the basement windows on either side of an empty bed. Its recent occupants are in the shower across the hall.

Yesterday's gut-churning uncertainty washes off Bellamy's skin with every touch of Clarke's soap-slippery body, every incautious grin, every flirting pass of deft fingers over tan thigh, stomach, buttock, cock. They fuck in the tiny steam-filled room, hot water raining over Bellamy's shoulders. Forcing the comparison to last night's bitter weather, and he grins as Clarke – spine pressed to the cool tiles, legs wrapped at his hips, hands braced against opposite walls – pants and moans her way through another climax. Sweat clings to her skin, mingles with stray droplets of water from the shower itself, and strands of blonde hair are plastered to her cheeks and throat. She bites her lips together as her limbs grow heavy and languid. She _still_ does not understand why he aches to make her come; will never grasp how beautiful she is in those moments after, when she is completely free. In those moments she is more valuable to him than any ephemeral Aurora Borealis – she is Polaris. His North Star, perhaps not always visible but _always_ his guide.

Bellamy and Clarke tiptoe back to his bedroom, in case Miller is home and by some miracle not yet awake. Bellamy grabs his favorite dark pants and an old t-shirt and apologizes to Clarke, warning her he has to go out for a bit but begging her to stay until he gets back. Make herself some breakfast. Take a nap if she wants – needs, perhaps, after last night and this morning. She smiles, confused but knowing determination when she sees it, and kisses him in silent vow not to go anywhere at all.

On his way out, he stops by the small trashcan in the living room. Searches for and finds an old scrap of crumpled, ripped paper near the top, and – as he flattens it against his thigh – offers silent thanks to Whoever might be in charge of his life, that Miller did not have time to clean yesterday after all.

Bellamy has gifts to buy.


End file.
